***
An uncomfortable silence engulfed the dining room. Martha rolled a wet bar in with Rhiannon pushing a cart with carafes and service. With drinks at hand, twelve women and six men all settled in.
The warriors sat back, observing. Niall muttered; “I bet those two witches will win out ...” Caleb smiled. “I’d put money on Kevan coming up unscathed.” Niall stuck out his hand, “You’re on!”
Kevan rolled her eyes, shooting daggers at the smirking spectators. She got up and stood behind her mother and aunt. “The truth, the whole truth,” she told them.
Bridget and Brianne looked at each other, then to their daughters, and they nodded their agreement.
“We will try and answer your questions to the best of our ability,” Bridget assured them. The wariness that she saw in Kevan’s eyes hurt; she recalled how close they had been when the girls were growing up, and she couldn’t lose that, even if it meant betraying the oath that they had taken so many years before. This was her family, and that came before anything else; she knew that Brianne felt the same way.
Kevan watched a range of emotions wash over her mother’s face as she waited until Bridget looked up, ready for the questions. “Why did you not tell us about your heritage, our heritage? Shit, what about Dad and Uncle Gavin? And you didn’t tell us, why? What does that make us? You bound our powers, why do that?” Kevan’s barrage left her face red.
Bridget’s heart contracted with the pain that she heard in Kevan’s voice. Jason and Gavin had tried more than once to convince their wives to tell the girls, because the truth was going to come out, and when it did, it wasn’t going to be pretty. To have their husbands proved right, didn’t sit well with Bridget. All Bridget could hear in her head was Jason telling her ‘I told you so,’ and nothing pissed her off more than when he was right.
“First off, as much as I hate saying this,” she grunted, “your father’s completely disagreed with our decision not to tell you. They repeatedly told us that we needed to tell you, but Brianne and I wanted you to have a normal childhood and not worry about all the other stuff.”
Kevan stared at her Mother, a look of disbelief on her face. “You didn’t just say that. Come on Mum, how the hell was our childhood normal? We grew up knowing that there are races other than human beings on the planet, and that we should stay away from all of them, especially the cairbare. According to what we heard as kids, they were responsible for the murder of our great grandmother Daphne. That is wrong, by the way,” Kevan ground out. “Do you have any idea what this last four weeks have been like for us? Brennan and I argued. I know, what is so different about that, we always argue. Well this time it was bad, so bad that I moved out of the house.”
“What?” Bridget exclaimed, but Kevan ignored her as she carried on.
“Do you have any clue why Myrna changed jobs? Or how about the fact that we got stuck in the middle of a fight at Sanctuary; that’s where Raven got cut by a demon’s blade.”
“Raven!” Bridget exclaimed. Kevan carried on, still not paying attention to what her words had done. Jason grabbed Bridget’s arm, stopping her from going to check on Raven.
“Do you know who helped us?” Kevan yelled as she got on a roll. “Not you, that’s for sure. You want to know who saved our collective asses, the big bad cairbare, thank the gods for them having pity on ill-prepared fighters. During all of this shit, guess what we discovered? They aren’t quite the bad guys we have always been told.” Kevan looked at the men sitting quietly, listening. “Then to make things even more embarrassing, we find out the so-called bad guys know more about who we are than we do, thanks ever so much for that. These same men have been worried about us for a long time, considering that our family had a friendship with them that goes back for almost 2000 years.”
She looked at her mother who was staying quiet, which in itself was odd, seeing as Bridget didn’t stay quiet for anything, or anyone, most of the time. “What, nothing to say yet?”
“You seem to be on quite the roll,” Bridget remarked.
“Why aren’t you yelling and screaming, isn’t that what you normally do?” Kevan shouted at her.
“I do not scream,” she informed her daughter, as she sat up straight, “not much, that is,” she admitted as the snorts of laughter echoed around the room.
“Who the hell are you, and what have you done with our mother?” Kaitlyn bounced out.
“Kaitlyn,” Bridget warned her.
“No, I’m with Kaitlyn, this isn’t like you. You hate it when we confront you on anything. Why aren’t you fighting back?” Kevan demanded.
“Fine, I admit that not telling you was wrong. We should have told you the truth. It was always our plan to tell you, but after a while it just got easier not to, because the minute that we did, we knew that you were going to hate us. And we justified it, saying that it was to protect you, and if I had to do the same thing over again, I would in a heartbeat. I know that saying it was to protect you sounds like an excuse, but it isn’t. We bound your powers, and didn’t say anything about our family heritage, because I couldn’t go through the same horror that we all went through when you were kidnapped by a crazed demon wanting to sacrifice you so that it could bring back some ancient deity to try and take over the world.”
The tears flowed down Bridget’s face as she recalled the terror that they had gone through with Kevan’s kidnapping. “You’ll understand one day. When you are mothers protecting your children, you’ll find that that is the only thing that is important. I don’t give a crap about the rest. By binding your powers, we protected you, all of you, and that was all that was important. It gave you the chance to become the strong capable women that you are today.”
Kevan sat quietly watching her mother wipe the tears from her face. She got up and walked over to her mother, kneeling down in front of her. “I didn’t know,” Kevan whispered, while taking her mother’s hands in hers. She looked up into her mother’s face.
“Of course you didn’t,” Bridget told her beautiful daughter, pulling one of her hands free, reaching out to stroke Kevan’s short hair before cupping her chin. “We didn’t want you to remember any of it; we had enough to deal with your sisters’ terrors after they witnessed your kidnapping by a monster. I cannot, and will not apologize for the choices we made.” She stared straight into Kevan’s face, unapologetic.
“Nobody is asking you to apologize for what you had to do, Mum. You did what you believed to be right. We were children, unable to defend ourselves, but as you can see, we are no longer children, and we haven’t been for a very long time. You should have told us about all of this a long time ago, but you chose not to, that’s what we have a problem with.”
“As I said earlier, it just got easier to leave things alone rather than to admit to our daughters that we had held back something from them,” Bridget admitted as she looked at the floor.
“Held some things back, I think that’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you Mum?”
“Kevan, I don’t know what you want from me. We’ve admitted that we could have handled this better, but if you think that I’m going to get on my knees crying and wailing for forgiveness, it isn’t going to happen. We’re human and we made a mistake.”
“Okay you made a mistake, you’re human, but are we?” Kevan wanted to know. “Caleb told us a little bit about what a Sentinel is, and from the impression that I got, it would seem that they are more like the cairbare, immortal beings, but I look at Dad and what I see is my 55 year father, but you’re not 55, are you Dad? We’ve watched you age along with Mum, we’ve celebrated your birthdays, but I get the impression that it’s all lies, because if you were immortal then you wouldn’t look older. Do we even know anything about you?” Kevan stood up and looked at her father, the one man that she knew would protect her with his life, and it hurt to know that he had lied, too.
A snap of his fingers a
nd Kevan’s mouth fell open in shock. “Oh my gods look at you,” she quietly exclaimed as she took in the men standing in front of her. They appeared to be what she could remember from her childhood. Gone was the grey hair and wrinkles; they looked strong and handsome and determined.
“So, do you age with Mum and then go leave when she dies?” Kevan questioned her father.
“No!” Bridget spun her fingers in the air in a counter clockwise movement, and suddenly standing in her place was Brennan’s twin. “As you can see, it would have caused a lot of questions, so we made ourselves appear to age as you grew older. We did it to protect you.” They all sat dumbfounded at the revelations that they had just seen.
“You keep saying that, but honestly I think I’m just more confused than anything else. I don’t know about the rest of you,” she looked to her sisters and cousins, “but to me, it sounds like a cop out, this doing it to protect us.”
Caleb came up behind Kevan, drawing her attention. Seeing her head shake no, he pulled her aside for a moment to allow her to get back onto an even keel. “Kevan,” he spoke against her temple.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she whispered, so only he could hear her.
“Yes you can, but you have to let them tell you their story.”
“I am,” she told him, as she held on to the man that suddenly had become her rock.
“No, you’re trying to make them say what you want to hear. It’s up to them to tell their story; it’s up to you to listen.”
“But ....”
“No buts, all you need to do is listen, and remember that they love you and you love them, that is all that really matters. The rest, it happened and nothing that you learn today is going to change that fact. You need to stop acting like this is a court of law, that if you don’t get the information that you want, you will throw them out of your life. You need to just shut-up for a little while, and stop thinking about cutting your parents out of your life. I don’t care how mad you are at them, they are your family and family is very important.”
Kevan wanted to argue with Caleb’s words, but deep inside she knew that he was right. She turned to face her parents and saw their hurt, but also their concern, and most of all their love, and that comforted her more than anything. “I want to apologize,” she explained, “If we have given you the impression we’re going to push you out of our lives if we don’t get the answers we want, don’t worry. That’s not going to happen, you’re our parents, and we love you all very much. Nothing you say here today will change that fact, but we can’t have any more secrets between us. Today has shown what that could do to us.”
“We love you honey, you and your sisters and cousins are the most important thing in our lives,” Bridget told Kevan as she wiped away the tears that were coursing their way down her cheeks, again.
“I know that you love us Mum, but we need to understand what happened. Our family history is important; it’s part of who we are. You may not believe that, but we need to know everything that you know. Why did Grandpa Joe think that the cairbare were the ones that were responsible for Daphne’s murder?”
Bridget sighed, rubbing her hands on her legs. “Kevan, I honestly wish I had an answer for you. We grew up with the same information about the cairbare that you did. Our mother told us that they were liars and murderers, and if they knew that we knew about them, that our lives could be in danger. So we tried to ignore them, until we were 18 years old.”
“But you grew up knowing about them?” Kaitlyn questioned.
“Of course. Like you, we grew up knowing that the other races existed. I t’s hard to deny it when all of you could see them from the moment that you were born, but we did the same thing with all of you, that our mother had done with us, warn you to stay away from them. Which we ourselves had done until approximately two weeks after our mother died.”
“After your mother died?” Kevan was confused. “Did Grandma Elizabeth know about her heritage?”
“Yes, but I don’t believe she wanted anything to do with the other races, just like her father. She certainly never told us anything more than what we told you growing up. So when things started happening after she died, we had no idea what was going on.” Bridget paused in the telling of their story to look to her sister sitting quietly beside her. “Different people get their powers at different times. We had just turned eighteen when our powers began to manifest themselves. We had no idea what was happening to us, and we were scared to death, especially after growing up hearing all about not exposing ourselves to the other races. Suddenly, we were doing things that we quite honestly thought we shouldn’t be able to do; that’s when we met Theresa.”
Kevan looked up at them. “Aunt Terry?” she asked as the image of their godmother flashed into her head. Bridget nodded, knowing what she was about to tell them would really make them mad.
“She could sense our uncontrolled powers, and came looking for us.”
“What, hold on? Did you just say that she could sense your powers?”
“Yes,” Bridget admitted.
“So what, Terry’s a witch, too?” Aiden’s voice shocked everyone.
“We need to straighten out that misconception,” Bridget told them.
“Are you telling us that you aren’t witches?” Kaitlyn questioned.
“Not exactly,” Brianne spoke up for the first time. They all looked to their Aunt.
“Okay, let’s just get everything out in the open,” Kevan urged her mother and aunt.
“We discovered that our family is descended from a very long line of witches on your great grandmothers’ side, but we come from an equally strong line of sorcerers on your great grandfather’s side.”
“So we’re half witches, half sorcerers?” Kaitlyn asked as they all tried to comprehend the information that they were getting in bits and pieces. “I’m getting another drink, anyone else while I’m up?” A chorus of I do’s filled the room, Aiden double shocking her family with her order for a double, seeing as most of the time she didn’t drink a single drop.
“It’s a little bit more complicated than just that, Kaitlyn,” Bridget stated.
“Complicated? Mum, stop giving us pieces of information in piece meal, it’s driving us crazy,” Brennan chimed in.
Bridget gathered her thoughts as she tried to find the right words to tell them a very small but important piece of their heritage. “You’re the only ones of your kind in the world,” she started. “You are …” she stopped.
“Mum, come on,” Kevan encouraged her after they were patient for a moment. “It’s not that difficult to figure out that if Dad is a Sentinel and you’re half witch and half sorcerer, then we are a mix of all three. It’s a bit odd to think of it that way, considering we grew up thinking of ourselves as English and Scottish.”
Bridget looked relieved that they seemed to be somewhat okay with what she was telling them. Kevan watched her face, she could see that there was something more, but a hunch told her that it wasn’t the time for that information, whatever it was, to come out.
Bridget looked up when she felt Kevan’s gaze on her. She could read in her eyes that she knew that there was more, but her daughter didn’t seem to be pushing it, for which Bridget was very happy. At some point in the future, they would have to know the whole truth about what these girls were. Kevan pushed the conversation back in another direction.
“So, Aunt Terry found you?”
“Yes, she sensed our uncontrolled powers, and came looking. It doesn’t happen too often, but every once in a while a witch is born to a human family, and members of the coven are always on the lookout for them. The coven can teach those who are fresh and unharnessed to control their powers, and ensure that they don’t give us away to the rest of the humans.”
“You talk like we aren’t human. My blood work looks just like everyone else’s, at least it does to me; does yours look different?”
Eve questioned.
“You are human,” Jason spoke up, “only different in some ways. We weren’t sure if you would have powers or not when you were born, and it showed itself very early with you all. Brennan was only eight months old when we saw the first signs.”
“We had never planned on keeping any of this from you.” Bridget told them. “But we wanted to wait to explain it when you would be old enough to understand. After Kevan was kidnapped, I guess we became a bit more on the paranoid side. We tried to give up our seats on the council, and our position in the coven, but nobody resigns from the coven or the council, so we just became inactive. We told them that we wanted nothing to do with them.”
“Okay, that’s all well and good, but you just jumped over a huge part of your life. At 18 you discovered that you were a witch/sorceress; what happened from there?” Kaitlyn wanted to know.
“Terry took us under her wing, showed us how to control and harness our powers. She trained us, and then took us before the coven to ask that we be sworn in as members of the Crystal Coven.”
“Obviously you were,” Kevan told them, recalling the tattoo that Caleb had revealed earlier.
“Yes, we were. It was quite an honor that at the age of twenty, we were accepted as full members of the Crystal Coven.” She paused; even after all these years she was proud of their accomplishment. “The Crystal Coven is one of the oldest, most powerful covens in the western hemisphere, and there are only a couple more powerful ones in the entire world. We studied and practiced our craft, fine-tuning, you might say. I don’t want to brag, but we’re very good and when we were 23, we were invited to join the Orion Council. Only the most talented individuals of the races are asked to join. It was a great honor for us at such a young age to be asked, so we’ve been members ever since, inactive members since you were babies.”
“Okay, but what exactly does this Orion Council do?” Kevan asked them. Bridget stayed quiet for a moment while she tried to think of a way to explain what they did.
“The Orion Council is like the police force of the others. We investigate and police the others, trying to ensure that they don’t expose us to the human population. We deal with territory disputes, grievances, things like that. Basically, for anything that you would go to the human police about, others come to the council.”
“Well, most of the races,” Caleb stated, but the tone in his voice made them look at him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kaitlyn questioned him.
“What it means is,” Marcus explained, “the Council, for some reason, does not like us. They go out of their way to ensure that they have nothing to do with us. The other races are more than happy to have us assist them, but the Council avoids us. I believe that the S.N.U.N. would too, but they can’t. We were one of the founding members.”
Anger flared in Bridget’s eyes as she whirled and faced both Caleb and Marcus.
“It’s not like you have gone out of your way to join the Council either, so don’t make it seem like we are the bad guys.”
“No, that’s your job,” Caleb stated, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Caleb,” Marcus warned. He stood over Bridget. “It’s not worth it. We help when and where we can, the rest is your responsibility.”
“The Council would be more than happy for you to help us, if you were more willing to follow the rules, but you never do. You all go off on your own, and do whatever you want without thinking about repercussions. Then we have to clean up your mess. You make it seem like we influenced the Council, when we were recruited, the Council already had a ban in place with regards to accepting help from the Cairbare. Don’t make us out to be the bad guys. We followed orders, and because we believed that you were responsible for Daphne’s murder, we were very happy not to have to deal with you, for any reason.”
“You really don’t want to go there,” Niall warned, stepping up beside Marcus. “We had nothing to do with Daphne’s murder.”
“So our daughters have said, but we only have your word on that,” Bridget snapped back, suddenly sounding so like Brennan, it was spooky.
“No,” Eve stated, “We have Daphne’s diary. I’m amazed you haven’t read it! It would be very enlightening.”
“You could have come and asked us, but instead you allowed hysteria to reign, turning away from your best protection,” Marcus stated. “The other races didn’t follow suit, and that really bothered the Council, arrogance fueling the need to be all powerful.”
“Why would the Council be bothered?” Bridget questioned. “They work with the full support of the S.N.U.N. You all go off half-cocked.”
“Now let’s be honest, we do what the Council won’t, we deal with things without talking them to death,” Marcus muttered an expletive.
“You go into situations like there are no consequences to what you are doing, and then walk away,” Bridget argued with Marcus, “leaving the Council to clean up your mess.”
“We have never left a mess for the Council to clean up. You’re just mad that we actually do something when we’re needed, while you have to sit on the sidelines, waiting for permission to make the first move. You know that the races come to us when it’s something serious,” Caleb argued.
“We all know how well that went over when you went barreling in the last time, don’t we?” Bridget threw at them. Her statement dripped with unspoken threats, but Kevan didn’t notice it.
“Enough!” she shouted. “You’re acting like children. Whatever problems you may have, deal with it at another time. Right now, the only thing that is important is getting the answers we need.”
Caleb looked at Kevan’s face, signs of mental and emotional overload tight around the eyes.
“Kevan’s right, this is an old argument and we won’t solve it here, so we’ll put aside our beef with the Council for the moment. But maybe we should leave it all for the moment.” he offered.
“I wish we could, but we can’t, we need to know the rest,” Kevan told him, before turning to look at her mother again. “You’re a member of this Orion Council, you’re a witch/sorceress, you obviously have powers, but still you didn’t tell us the truth. You’ve hidden a huge part of yourself from us. I don’t know about the other girls, but I’m still so pissed.”
“And the ‘we were just trying to protect you’, isn’t going to cut it,” Brennan stated, coming to stand beside Kevan, linking their hands together in a show of support. It felt good for them both to be on the same side. “As we have already told you, we aren’t little kids anymore.”
“You’re right, you aren’t children and haven’t been for a long time, but you are our children and it doesn’t matter how old you get, we are always going to think of you as our babies.”
Bridget held her hand up to stop whatever they were about to say. “Yes, we know we should have handled this differently, but hindsight is 20/20, or so they say. We could say that if we had it to do over again, that we would change what we did, but quite honestly, I don’t know if we would change anything.”
Kevan shrugged, “Okay, here’s the thing. We understand why you did what you did, but did you think that you could keep it from us for the rest of our lives?”
“We never thought that far ahead. We argued with ourselves that you all had full happy lives without knowing any of this, and why should we interfere with that.”
“You don’t seem to understand how difficult this has been,” Brennan told them.
“We do understand, and as I have said before, we can’t change what we did, we need to move on.”
“Mum’s right, we need to stop the blame game.” Kevan continued, “The one that started this whole thing was Grandpa Joe. Our lives would be very different if Daphne hadn’t been murdered, but she was. At least we know more now, and that’s important, but something is missing.”
“Kevan,” Caleb questioned her, “What’s happening?” Kevan sho
ok her head as the feelings sank into her bones.
“What’s missing?” Bridget questioned her.
“That’s just it, I don’t know, I just know that we need to find them to stop them.”
“Stop who?” Caleb pushed her.
Kevan looked around the table, her hand caressing the warm wood. “I don’t know. I just know that something is coming, something bad, and we’re its target. We are blind without information, we …, we’re in big trouble, I can feel it,” she spoke quietly.
“Kevan?” Niall had stepped up to her, “You’re sensing something, what is it?”
“I don’t know, wish I could put it into words, but I can’t. It’s like something is coming and it’s ... this makes no sense.” Kevan sighed with frustration. “I just know if we don’t figure this out, and fast, we are in for a lot of trouble.”
“Okay, this is just weird,” Kaitlyn muttered. “I hate that you have that sixth sense thing, we trust it, but really Kev, I wish you wouldn’t be quite so dramatic.”
“Well, I’m sorry if my telling you that we have a big bad evil coming after us is too dramatic for you Kait, because we all know that you are never too dramatic.” Kaitlyn stuck her tongue out at her sister.
“Enough, you two,” Brennan hissed. “What are you sensing? Gods I hate this,” she told them.
“Having to change your mind, Brennan? You like the taste of crow?” Kevan asked her.
“Not like I have a lot of choice,” Brennan stated as they looked at their silent parents.
Bridget watched her daughters, taking in the changes that she had seen, but had not really wanted to acknowledge. Her babies were all grown up women, strong beautiful women, capable of making their own choices, whether she liked it or not. Kevan stood at the front of them, her quiet confidence echoing out. She might not realize it, but she was the one that her sisters always turned to for advice and help.
“We promise from this point on we will be as truthful as we can with you,” Bridget promised.
Kevan started to take issue with what she had said to her but Caleb stopped her. A shake of his head told her that now was not the time.
“Thank you, Mum. Now I have a question, Dad. Caleb explained a little bit of what a Sentinel does. They’re guards sent to protect someone that has been deemed important. So who were you sent to guard, and who sent you?” she looked at her father and uncle.
“You know who,” Jason told her.
“Okay, your orders were to guard Mum and Aunt Brianne. Who sent you, and why?”
“We don’t know who sent us, we never do, it’s not like we got a memo with background, just orders.” Jason shrugged. “We don’t get any other information except who we are to protect from all that might cause harm. We knew that your mum and aunt were whom we were to protect, but that was all.”
“So you never questioned why?” Kevan asked him.” That doesn’t sound like you, either of you. I don’t think I can ever recall you two taking things at face value. You always have questions.” She watched, trying to see if she could sense anything before she looked to Eve, who shook her head; she wasn’t either. “What aren’t you telling us Dad?”
“Kevan, you and your sister can try all you want. We can’t tell you what we don’t know, and we aren’t exactly on the need to know list, anymore.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kevan wanted to know.
“We are Sentinels, meant to protect our charges, not fall in love with them.”
“So what, they threw you off the team because you fell in love?” Kaitlyn joked, but she saw the look on their faces. “Oh gods, they did, didn’t they?”
“What?” Kevan asked.
“They kicked them out!” Kaitlyn told her.
“You aren’t Sentinels anymore?” Eve asked.
“No, we are still Sentinels; we have been called upon throughout the years to protect charges, which we have done countless times, always returning when the assignment was complete. It was never a problem until we met your mother and aunt. We tried to treat them like any other ward, but you know your mother when she wants something.”
“I wasn’t exactly subtle with the fact I wanted your father,” Bridget smiled, but the look on her face told so much more.
“Oh gods, TMI,” Kaitlyn cried out, covering her ears. “TMI!”
“Agreed!” Kevan said, shaking her head trying to get rid of the unwelcome image she had. “So what happened?”
“Long story short, your mother took the decision out of our hands,” Jason told them.
“How was that?” Kevan asked.
“She got pregnant with Brennan,” he told them with a smile. “The decision was taken from us; we stayed with your mothers, and had our families. Take to heart that we have never regretted it for one moment.”
Jason took Bridget’s hand into his, bringing it up to his mouth to plant a kiss upon the back of it.
“Ah, that’s really sweet,” Kaitlyn told them.
Kevan looked to Caleb and the other warriors. “Do you think that this is part of your prophecy?”
Caleb shrugged his shoulders. “It’s hard to say. We have been here for centuries, seen too many things, and shaded clues fit too many scenarios, at least for me.” Caleb looked to Marcus and Niall. “What do you think? You both have studied it?”
“What prophecy?” Bridget questioned.
“Not now, Mum,” Kevan told her.
“I guess that it could be part of it,” Niall admitted.
“You’ve never told us exactly what it says; if you told us, maybe we could see something that you haven’t?” Kevan told them.
“It’s not much, like Caleb so eloquently put it, just shaded clues.”
Descendants of One,
Knowledge and Powers
Theirs to Wield,
Seeking Truths Unseen,
Righting Wrongs Long Done
They all looked at Niall, his words ringing in their heads. A pensive look came over him.
“What are you thinking?” Kevan asked.
“That maybe we had this all wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if this prophecy isn’t just about you getting your powers back?”
“Niall, I still don’t see why an Oracle would give a prophecy about us getting our powers back. Seeking truths unseen, righting wrongs long done? Could it be that we are to find the book and stop Dreyden from getting it, and using it to do something terrible? I think we are mired waist deep in the big picture, girls.”
“Kevan ...?” Niall started.
“Go with me on this, okay. What if Daphne was murdered, but not for what she knew about the grimoire? But what someone else knew about it, and may have told her? She was a healer for not only for the cairbare, but also for all other communities. What if someone told her something, an innocent accident, making her a target for Dreyden?”
“I guess, but why wouldn’t the rest of the others know more about the grimoire, not just the cairbare?” Kaitlyn asked.
“I don’t know; it’s a work in progress,” Kevan admitted. “Any idea?”
“Yeah, may be a good one,” Kaitlyn stated. Kevan could see her sister turning something over in her head before asking, “Hey, what if we are looking at this wrong?”
“What do you mean?” Kevan asked her.
“We keep looking at this like Daphne knew something about the grimoire. What if she didn’t?” Kaitlyn asked, stopping as she continued to think over what was in her head.
“Your love of melodrama is quite annoying,” Marcus growled at her. “Get to the point. What is going through that head of yours? You have to have an idea once in a while that makes sense.”
“At least I’m not anal retentive, like someone else we know,” Kaitlyn spat back at him.
“Truce you two. Once we figure this out, you can get back to tossing names at each other, but right now I
would like to hear what Kaitlyn has to say,” Kevan sounded like an exasperated mom. Kaitlyn stuck her tongue out at Marcus, who just rolled his eyes. “Oh, really mature Kaitlyn,” Kevan told her sister. “Talk!”
“What if Daphne was murdered to prevent something.”
“Prevent what?” Kevan wanted to know, but suddenly an idea began to form in her head, seeing where Kaitlyn was heading. “Oh my gods, you’re brilliant, and it makes so much more sense than what I came up with.”
“Glad to know that you recognize my brilliance, finally,” Kaitlyn preened.
“Okay, for the rest of us that aren’t as brilliant, please continue?” Eve told them. “Twins ...”
“Dreyden didn’t murder Daphne because she might have some kind of information regarding the book. He thought that she was the one who would stop him,” Kaitlyn stated.
“But I thought she was a healer?” Brennan questioned.
“She was, but look at it this way. The prophecy is completely up to an individual interpretation of it, and what if he thought that the descendant of the one meant Daphne, but he was wrong?”
“Huh?” Brennan queried.
“Daphne was never the one that would stop him, or even go after him,” Marcus stated.
“That I understand, then who?”
“Us!” Kevan stated.
“What?” Brennan shouted. Kevan looked to her mother.
“What do you think would have happened if Daphne hadn’t been murdered?”
“I don’t know; I would think that things would have gone on the way that they had been.”
“Except you and Aunt Brianne likely wouldn’t have needed to be protected. Which means that you would have never met Dad and Uncle Gavin, and we likely wouldn’t have been born,” Kevan stated.
“Kevan, you are making some wild assumptions. Are you saying that Dreyden murdered Daphne to ensure that we were born?” Eve questioned her.
“No, I don’t think that was his goal. It was a by-product, and if you think about how different our lives would have been ...; we can stand here all day and speculate about how things happened the way they did, but until we find Dreyden, we won’t get any answers.” Kevan turned, looking at Joseph. “You have been too quiet, now fill in some blanks. This book, it’s nasty, right?”
Joseph sat up in his chair. “Yes, world ending bad,” he informed without one hint of emotion, but his eyes showed them how terrifying it could be.
“Then I think that we don’t have a lot of choice, do we?” Kevan told them.